Are you a marketer trying to define target audience using customer personas in the GTA market?
Customer personas can be a great way for marketers to understand the psyche of their typical consumer. However, the process of narrowing down to a few profiles can be intimidating for beginners trying to figure out the correct process and framework to utilize. Professionals usually get caught on the how instead of the why it is important to do it.
So why should marketers create personas, really?
When you want to sell a product or service, or even provide information for an audience, the biggest challenge is not to create a technically perfect offering, it is rather understanding why that offering is important to the target.
According to Kevan Lee on his “The Beginner’s Guide to Creating Marketing Personas”, those consumer profiles are actually “human beings” created to represent the most relevant segments of your audience.
But how do you get to that ultimate benefit they are looking for? Think about it for a minute: these human beings are just like you, people with complex lifestyle, specific choices, and needs. Just like you, do they want to solve a problem faster, do they want to make a statement through a product, do they want or need to stay healthier? And how can you know? By looking at raw data that you already have and compiling the most typical profiles of customers understanding all aspects related to their being. Does that mean you have to do rocket science to get there? No, don’t worry!!
1- Raw Data:
Here marketers usually think about big data, complex algorithms, and formula, but honestly, a start point is really looking at people’s behaviour with the tools you have. Watch social media, look at what competitors are doing, look at other Brands that offer the same benefit. For instance, if you are selling yoga classes, look at people’s behaviour towards health as a whole, including how they choose how they eat and where they eat, how they spend their free time, what songs they like, which books they enjoy, where they work, etc.
2- Template:
The best way to start is to get a blank template. There are several free templates online. Just Google it! Canva has beautiful templates you can utilize.
It is important, however, to include general demographic information such as a NAME!, age range, gender, income. But start to build from there to include behavioural and psychologic aspects as well:
- Type of job they do
- Brands they love
- Communities they belong to
- Blogs or sites they read
- Stores they buy: online or offline
- Places they have visited lately
- Family profile
3- Share the baseline with peers
The more people participate in the persona creation process, the richer and truer that persona will be! So as soon as you fill out the template, start sharing and getting people’s feedback. Don’t treat it as a final product! Ask for people’s input. Think about including operational areas including promotion staff, customer services, RH and other. The more you include, the better!
4- Validate with upper management
After you are done getting the team’s input, start validating with management. Choose key leaders who clearly understand the vision to validate and discuss those personas with you.
5- Start to devise tactics to put those profiles into use
Personas are key to build effective marketing tactics. Start your digital marketing action: choose a social media that relate to them, create that target content aiming at them! Once you understand WHO your target persona is, deriving your business goals into marketing goals is going to be a piece of cake!